Electronic devices are omnipresent. Examples of electronic devices include, for instance, control devices, e.g., microcontrollers, and digital signal processors. An electronic device may, for instance, be arranged to control an engine in dependence on user input signals in conjunction with sensor signals. The sensor signals may, for instance, indicate current operating characteristics of the engine, such as an instantaneous power, temperature, or a number of revolutions per second.
Although an electronic device may be designed to meet certain minimum requirements in regards to robustness and reliability, the device may fail to operate correctly. This may be due to, for instance, production errors, wear, or aging. Manufactures are increasingly worried about users operating devices which have failed. In the automotive powertrain sector, for instance, a problem exists with illegal tuning or modification of an algorithm that controls an engine, for example, to produce more power or to remove some control restriction. Car manufacturers are therefore concerned about software security and are going to great lengths to close security loopholes. One such loophole is the illegal use of engine control modules that have failed in the field. These failed modules may be sent back to the module manufacturer for failure analysis. A fear is that they may be acquired by illegal tuners, repaired, and resold as a “hot” module. A related concern is that a failed electronic module may get returned to service but containing pirate software. This software may result in the engine not meeting a required emissions standard or overstressing part of the car, such as the gearbox, which may then fail and may have to be replaced under warranty. Another risk is that a failed module is not repaired and then reused by mistake.